Unusual
by Kakawot
Summary: "That's not true, Sam. Prowl, for example, sucks at chess." - Oneshot, '07-verse


**A/N:** A different view at some fandom assumptions. Enjoy!

* * *

Usually, it's hot in August, especially in Nevada. This meant that usually two teenagers and a sentient car / awesome alien were outside, walking around, smelling the clean desert air that surrounded the Autobot base, reading a magazine, talking about whatever came to mind… In short, enjoying the summer vacation.

But today was not an usual August day. Because it was raining. Hard. Torrents were pouring from the sky and the second Sam poked his head outside the human door of the base the rumble of a lightning storm bounced around in the distance. Quickly he withdrew and headed back deeper into the subterranean base, towards the rec room.

Usually, the presence of rain and thunder meant the attention was shifted to a movie or a game. A video game, that is. Usually, the alien was best at it, with Sam coming in a close second. Mikaela just joined for the heck of it and gets pummeled, but still she gets worked up over it and starts yelling at the screen for her character to stop dying or for her car to stop careening off cliffsides.

Usually, the other mechs avoid the rec room if the dubbed 'teenage club' is in there, and for ease of reference Bumblebee is included in that club. Not because the presence of Sam and Mikaela is unwanted on base, but because they often have such eccentric discussions that the other mechs don't know how to cope with them. So they just avoid them altogether.

But today, today was an unusual day. Today was a day of surprises, of quips and repartees, of discovery and challenges. It was a day of chess.

And this time around Mikaela was beating the pants off of Sam at the game whilst Bumblebee looked on, amused by Sam's groaning and Mikaela's merciless queen taking yet another pawn off of the board.

"Come on, 'Kaela, have some mercy on my poor pawn. It's his first day on the job, and he needs the money to support his family."

Merciless. The pawn was swept off of the board.

"Sam, stop making up background stories for every piece I take. And mind your king," she said with amusement coloring her voice a bright sparkly orange. Sam quickly turned his eyes downward and checked the board to see what she meant.

He had agreed with her when she said that she wanted to play a board game today instead of always watching TV on rainy days, but he thought she'd meant a card game or perhaps some Monopoly. Instead she procured a chess board from the haphazard pile of board games and her eyes started to take on a sneaky gleam that he didn't like one bit. Sam didn't even know they had chess on base! It had also been a while since he last played… But once Mikaela had placed all of the pieces on the board it started to make sense again, and all of the rules and requirements barged their way back into his brain.

"I see my king and raise you a knight," he said as he used his knight to take her rook which threatened his king. He let go of the piece and knew it was a mistake when Mikaela's smirk grew. Hurriedly his eyes flashed over the board and came to rest on… Oh. Damn.

Mikaela wiggled her fingers before slowly sliding the piece forward, deliberately taking her time. Payback for all the times he had beaten her at video games, it seemed.

"Checkmate. You, sir, have been…"

She got up and struck a dramatic pose before bellowing:

"Pawned!"

That had Sam almost literally rolling on the floor with laughter. At the very least he was holding his sides and attempted not to fall from his chair, howling with laughter. Bumblebee was also clicking up a storm, and played a laugh track at the same time.

Together they dragged Mikaela down with them, as she started laughing at her own clever joke, and soon they kept each other going. One shared look had them all bursting out laughing again. After a while, they started to sober up. None of them could've told why exactly this was so funny. But it was a good way to spend a rainy day, either way.

After resetting the board, Mikaela and Sam played again. This time Sam went on the defensive as Mikaela sought an entry into his fort with her knight. Finally, after Sam used his fortified position to dare an attack on Mikaela's queen, she got her knight in through the gap and wrecked havoc in Sam's ranks. After losing four pieces in four turns without being able to do anything about it, Sam tried to smuggle his king from the fort. But he was blocked by his own pieces and soon he had to surrender as his pawns stood in the way of freedom and Mikaela's knight was at the other end.

"Wanna play, Bee?"

Asked Mikaela while Sam reset the board. The onwatching Autobot nodded eagerly and Sam was put to use as a tool. Bumblebee gave the instructions and Sam moved the pieces. This time the battle wasn't so one-sided and Mikaela had to work hard to keep Bumblebee from breaching her defenses and swooping in to take her queen. His queen had been lost early in the game so he was determined to level the playing field.

They squeezed in a short lunch break when Bumblebee had managed to get his second pawn to the other side of the board.

"I don't think we've got another chess set," mused Mikaela and rooted through the pile of games to make sure.

"Why do you need another chess set?" said Sam as Mikaela sat on her hunches and opened the _Sorry!_ box. From the mess she plucked a red pawn.

"Because Bee gets a second queen cause he got the pawn to the other side. Officially, you need at least two chess sets, but since we don't have that… I declare this red pawn to be queen," she said and replaced the wooden chess pawn with the red plastic one.

"Now, I believe it's my turn…"

It took another twenty minutes, but finally Mikaela had to admit defeat. Her king, knight and rook, her last remaining pieces, were slowly being driven into a corner. Before Bumblebee could check her, she tipped her king over.

"No use wasting time on a lost game," she said and leant back, sighing deeply. Bumblebee nodded at her and she nodded back. It had been a good game.

"I don't think it's really fair," said Sam as he too leant back and stretched. "I mean, you 'bots have such a strong brain and can think way more logically than we can. I think every Autobot is good at chess. And checkers. And pretty much every game where luck doesn't come into play."

Bumblebee shook his head at that.

"That's not really true, Sam. Prowl, for example, is really bad at chess."

"Prowl? That guy who's recently landed that can think up amazing strategies for all kinds of battles and is so smart it makes our brains seem like underdeveloped babies? That Prowl?"

Bumblebee nodded and Sam flailed his arms about in an attempt to convey his confusion.

"But… how… why… This does not compute."

"It's because of his-"

Bumblebee started, but was interrupted by a cultured tenor voice coming from the door of the rec room. The mech himself was standing there, obviously having just entered. Judging by the padd he was holding, he had been walking by and caught part of the conversation.

"As the subject of that sentence, please allow me to elaborate."

Prowl put on his tutor voice which he had used on too many 'bots to count. Bumblebee recognized it at once and conceded.

"You've got the floor."

"Thank you," said Prowl and turned his gaze to the humans. "Sam, I hear you're familiar with the medium 'video games', correct?"

Sam nodded and gestured towards the console and pile of games next to it in a broad sweep.

"As you can see."

"Are you also familiar with the terms 'three-dimensional' and 'two-dimensional'?"

"Yeah, but I don't get what that has to do with chess…"

"Please, hear me out. I have seen that you play almost entirely three-dimensional games on your console. You get the 'rules' of these games instinctively, because you live in a three-dimensional world."

Bumblebee used the small pause between sentences to correct that statement.

"Actually, six-dimensional-"

"Bumblebee, that is for the human scientists to find out for themselves," interrupted Prowl before Bumblebee could say too much and advance human mathematics too soon. He returned to his explanation before the humans focused on the dimension remark too much.

"As I was saying, three-dimensional is natural for you. In order for you to understand and play two-dimensional games, you have to adapt. Because by pushing the right arrow you make the character move through the level instead of strafing right. But you can overcome this. Now imagine an one-dimensional game, if such a game existed. You can not perceive it, you cannot understand it. The rules are out of your reach. When you push a button, the opposite of what you expect happens.  
For me, chess is like that."

That left Sam gaping and Mikaela tapping her chin in thought. After a few seconds, Sam was able to vocalize his tumbling thoughts into a coherent sentence.

"But chess has simple rules! You're a tactician, you should be able to understand them, right?"

"Well, actually..." Began Prowl, and continued his explanation with his captive audience listening on in utter concentration. It wasn't often that they spoke with each other, and the humans were using this opportunity to get to know the mech better.

"Let me explain how I 'work'. I am used to dealing with thousands of variables in my strategies on the field. This is '3-d' to me. To make plans and tactics, I have to force reality into a model. I have to adapt. This is comparable to 2-d. When I'm confronted with a static game with little variables and pieces whose movements are set in stone, this is 1-d. I cannot grasp the simplicity of it. My battle computer deals with the strategies I come up with but does not report back, because the answer is so simple it deems it unimportant and the data gets dumped by my safety protocols to prevent crashing."

The humans took a while to digest that, but Mikaela summarized it in one sentence.

"So what you're saying is… chess is too easy?"

Prowl nodded.

"In essence, yes."

"That's the weirdest explanation for sucking at chess I've ever heard," said Sam as he cocked his head in thought. "I think we've got ourselves a new challenge, right, Mikaela?"

Mikaela started to grin as she got what Sam was playing at and Bumblebee warbled some clicks as well.

"Find a game Prowl can actually play?" said Mikaela and Sam rewarded her with two thumbs up as Prowl let his doorwings sag. He foresaw the rest of his day dwindle away into playing games.

"You got it!"


End file.
